Covid in Austria: Corona Hawks Press for Renewal of Mandates—they will come ‘in a matter of days’, Health Minister Rauch says (UPDATED)

After tomorrow's federal election, many mandates will likely return, even though only 1 in 5 admissions is due to Covid, and of those who are admitted, virtually all who test positive are injected

As things stand, it’s a rollercoaster ride. The other day, we spoke about the tripling of government handouts to (selected) legacy media outlets, because…it worked so well since Covid appeared, according to the responsible cabinet-level official, one Ms. Susanne Raab (ÖVP).

Mandate Madness, Autumn 2022 Edition

Today, we must talk about the return of the Covidistan mandate regime, which is imminent. According to a statement by Health Minister Johannes Rauch, here’s what he said last Friday (i.e., yesterday, 7 Oct. 2022):

If there is a risk of the health system being overburdened, we will of course resort to measures in a timely fashion. However, according to the assessment of almost all experts, this is not to be expected at present.

A rather measured statement, I’d agree, and over the summer, Mr. Rauch has been among the few Austro-Covidians on the Committee of Public Safety who spoke out against the mandate madness.

Yet, I’d throw in my own ‘crazy conspiracy theory’ here. You see, Mr. Rauch gave a long-form interview to Vienna’s leading bourgeois newspaper, Die Presse, yesterday (it’s paywalled, though), in which he basically said it’s ‘a matter of days’ before mandates return, claiming that he ‘can’t wait for a levée to break before I start doing something about the flooding’.

Leaving the absurd choice of analogy aside, I would implore readers to consider the simple fact that—this was entirely predictable. And it had been ‘predicted’ in these pages as early as late March 2022 (yep, half a year ago), as the record clearly shows:

Covidistan Annals XXXIII: Corrections Edition--Proof-reading Alex Berenson's recent (partially misleading) statements about Austria

Covidistan Annals XXXIV: The Return of the Mandates is Official (as of 24 March 2022)

I’m not posting these links to gloat that I was correct; this is me keeping the receipts.

So, what is changing now that Covidistan had revoked (most) mandates over the summer, incl. the quarantine obligation?

It’s the politics, stupid!

There’s a federal election coming up tomorrow, as citizens of the ‘electoral democracy’ are called to the polls to vote for a new president. I won’t bore you with the (mind-numbingly absurd) campaign shenanigans as the office of federal president is a mainly ceremonial one. The incumbent, one Alexander van der Bellen (Greens) is a douchebag and warmonger, calling those who advocate for peace (that would be me, too) and against the sanctions vs. Russia as ‘collaborators’ (Kollaborateure) and ‘traitors of the people’ (Volksverräter), which has a particularly bad ring to it in a country whose inhabitants once were part of the Third Reich.

He’s not alone in his contempt for We, the People, though, as his co-cultist and Green party chair, Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler, voiced similar sentiments on 3 Oct., at once labelling those who cling to Austrian neutrality (a topic for another long-form essay, for sure) in the following:

Those who do nothing are complicit in mass murder, rape, and child abduction. There can be no neutrality.

Having served not a single day in the military (I did, and while I didn’t do much some 20 years ago, I think I’m a bit more ‘entitled’ to speak about military service than Mr. Kogler), the Vice Chancellor affirmed in mid-August that he would ‘defend the country with a rifle in his hand’. Apparently, when he was ‘eligible’ for military conscription, Mr. Kogler didn’t see things that way, but now, since somebody else would do the fighting and dying, he’s, of course, all for it. What a despicable chicken hawk (with due apologies to our feathered friends in the animal kingdom).

War is hell, no doubt about it, but it’s one thing to add fuel to a fire, such as Mr. van der Bellen and Mr. Kogler are doing; it’s a whole other thing to even begin to consider the 8+ years of shelling of the Donbass by Ukrainian (para)military forces. But I digress.

Let’s return to Covid, shall we?

It suffices to mention that 9 Oct. is election day, hence Mr. Rauch’s ‘statements’ mean: as soon as the election is over, and provided the ‘right’ candidate—which would be Mr. van der Bellen—won, the rabble may be punished anew with whatever kind of mandates and measures.

As detailed, in the slavish obedience—in German, I’d use the term Kadavergehorsam, i.e., a zombie-esque form of proactive, or anticipatory, behaviour whereby people would do things because they think it will be expected and/or required of them—typical of the Covidistan régime’s most hawkish pencil-pushers over at Der Standard, Mr. Rauch’s statements were commented on in the following manner (my emphases):

‘The [civil-military government advisory board] GECKO recommendation at the moment is to consider introducing mandatory FFP2 masks in certain areas’, Rauch explained. ‘We will therefore continue to monitor the situation for a few more days.’ If current developments continue, though, ‘we will come to the point where we have to act’, the minister opined. ‘The direction will certainly become clear in the next few days.’ First, mandatory masking would be reintroduced in public transport and grocery stores [as well as pharmacies], then possibly in all other indoor public spaces, Rauch explained.

Of course, the only solution to all of this is—more injections:

Meanwhile, the GECKO task force also advises people to take up the Covid test offers. In addition, the advisory board, which met earlier this week, reiterated the importance of the Covid vaccination and Covid 19 drugs [here, the Pfizer and Merck products are meant], stating that ‘both make a significant contribution to protecting against severe disease’.

Leaving aside the little-known fact that these anti-viral products are available, but they are especially recommended for the elderly (65+), chronically ill (e.g., diabetes), obese, and immunosuppressed individuals, as Mr. Rauch’s Health Ministry website explains:

Covid-19 treatments…are an effective additional measure for inject-able [impfbare] high-risk patients. They are not an alternative to Covid vaccination.

I’m glad we’ve got this settled, eh? Back to Der Standard and its hit-piece:

‘In recent weeks, the development and description of new coronavirus variants has been very dynamic’, virologist and GECKO member Andreas Bergthaler explained. Apart from the globally dominant Omicron variants—especially BA.2 and BA.5—several sub-variants have evolved, he said, some of which show considerable regional growth advantages. ‘What is particularly striking here is that the same mutations have repeatedly arisen independently of each other in different genetic backgrounds. This indicates strong selection pressure and/or significantly increased fitness of these mutations.’

Let’s briefly unpack this, shall we? Mr. Bergthaler (profile here) is telling us—in Der Standard, no less—that the Omicron variants are evolutionarily very ‘fit’, which is to say that esp. the BA.4/5 variants, as well as BA.2, are very good at escaping whatever (and however limited in time) protection may be offered by the Covid-19 injectable products.

This is what is meant by invoking ‘strong selection pressure and/or significantly increased fitness’ of these variants. It simply indicates that nature always finds a way.

Needless to say, Der Standard’s concluding sentences are more Big Pharma shilling:

A new Covid-19 vaccine adapted to the Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5 is available in Austria. It is deemed to be particularly effective.

Remember: the bivalent ‘booster’ has been tested in eight (!) mice, all of whom contracted Omicron when challenged with the pathogen.

Remember also that, even (!) Forbes ran a piece in late August explaining that (my emphases)

bivalent boosters tested in these human studies were not exactly the same as the bivalent ones being administered now in clinics, pharmacies, and other vaccination sites throughout the country. No, if you want human clinical trial data specifically on the bivalent BA.4/5 booster, you’re gonna have to wait a little while. According to a company announcement on August 31, the human clinical trial for the Moderna bivalent BA.4/5 booster is ‘fully enrolled and currently underway’. That same day, Gretchen Vogel reported for Science that the clinical trial for the Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent BA.4/5 booster will commence in September this month.

So what data specific to the BA.4/BA.5 boosters, did the FDA use to expand the EUAs to include the BA.4/BA.5 boosters? Well, the answer is at least in part very ‘mice’. Apparently, both Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have provided non-human animal data on the BA.4/BA.5 boosters to the FDA to state their case for the EUA. But they haven’t yet shown this data to the rest of the scientific community or the public. This data have reportedly included some preliminary findings from eight mice. Yes, that’s one less than the current number of U.S. Supreme Court justices. Apparently, the mice who had received the Pfizer/BioNTech BA.4/BA.5 boosters as their third Covid-19 vaccine doses had increased immune responses to the BA.1, BA.2, BA.2.12.1, BA.4, and BA.5 Omicron subvariants compared to those who had received monovalent boosters. That may be quite ‘mice’ and encouraging. But if you look in the mirror and don’t notice whiskers, fur, and a tail, then are such mouse data really enough to say that the BA.4/BA.5 boosters will offer you better protection against the currently circulating subvariants than the original booster would?

Good points, eh? I shall leave it to your judgement, dear readers, as to whether or not that concluding statement by Der Standard constitutes ‘misinformation’, gaslighting, or cheap agit-prop.

Let’s move on, we’ve got other things to cover, too.

How Bad is the Covid Situation Right Now?

Well, turns out that Der Standard and many other legacy media outlets, two days earlier (that would be 5 Oct. 2022) ran pieces explaining that ‘currently, only 22% of hospitalisations are due to Covid as main cause’. In the country’s ICUs, that share is 12%.

If you—like me—would like ‘official’ numbers, please venture over to the Committee of Public Safety’s brand-new and shiny ‘Covid-19 Register’, which has a lot of data—and many obviously counter-indicative graphs summarising the state of Covid in Covidistan. (What the register doesn’t show, though, is easily accessible data on how admissions changed over time, most likely because the data wasn’t collected and/or it would be too embarrassing to show.)

Here is the current (as of 5 Oct. 2022) admission percentages according to injection status:

First row: admission for ‘symptomatic Covid-19’: 19 + 57 + 1 + 19 = 97% of admissions are among injected individuals, i.e., a combination of ‘not sufficiently vaccinated’ (red), ‘no longer possess a valid Covid Passport’ (yellow), and ‘sufficiently vaccinated’ (blue, 3 doses), and ‘up-to-date vaxxed’ (4 doses).

Second row: admission for other causes but ‘incidentally testing positive for Covid-19’: 23 + 52 + 3 + 21 = 99% of those who are hospitalised for other causes but test positive received at least one injection.

Third row: admission for anything else: 100% of those who test positive have received at least one injection.

UPDATE / EDIT: reader jan van ruth recommended a clarification, and I shall happily oblige: please note that the ‘red’ category = ‘no (sufficient) vaccine protection’ includes both 1-dose recipients as well as ‘unvaccinated’. No further clarifications are provided.

Sidenote: I think that the data visualisation and esp. the ‘definition’ is misleading as it does not differentiate between 1-dose recipients vs. ‘unvaccinated’ people, but I would think that, if the individuals in this category would be overwhelmingly ‘unvaccinated’, legacy media and public health officialdom would let us know…

Even the briefest glimpse at the official numbers (courtesy of the Health Ministry) shows that injection uptake is cratering and that a mere 58% of Austro-Covidian residents currently fulfil the National Injection Consortium’s ‘recommendations’. In other words: the near-complete absence of ‘unvaccinated’ individuals among hospitalised patients is obviously the big canary in the coalmine.

Bottom Lines

Don’t be fooled or gaslit into doing something stupid, such as taking an injection this late in the game. If you’ve made it so far, don’t change a running immune system.

The Austro-Covidian vaccinators are increasingly desperate, as the equivocating and gaslighting clearly shows. Injections are failing, even legacy media appears to catching on, sort of, by now, and the data on hospital admissions—which are an indicator of severe disease—show that it is, after all, a ‘pandemic of the vaccinated’.

That said, and despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, Austro-Covidistan will in all likelihood see a return of many mandates perhaps as early as next week once the federal election is done. This means the re-establishment of pointless mandatory PCR testing in schools; all is set up for the ÖVP-connected firm ‘Covid Fighters’ to manage this utter waste of taxpayer money from mid-to-late October onwards.

We shall continue to keep the receipts and call out this madness, but I shall conclude with an aphorism by Karl Kraus whose endeavours were my personal inspiration of calling this newsletter ‘Die Fackel 2.0’:

Es scheint der Menschennatur verhängt zu sein, durch Erfahrung dümmer und erst durch deren Wiederholung klüger zu werden, und besonders die Intelligenz muss viel mitmachen, bevor sie zu der Einsicht gelangt, dass eine Freiheit, die ihre Vernichtung herbeiführen würde, nur durch Hemmung zu retten ist.

Here’s my translation of Kraus’ quote, which appeared in Die Fackel (July 1934):

It seems to be part of human nature to become dumber through experience and wiser only through its repetition; intelligence, in particular, must go through a great deal before it comes to the realisation that a freedom which would bring about its destruction can only be saved by restraint.

It’s not a perfect translation, but I suppose it’ll do.